The Boyfriend Bet (Boyfriend Chronicles #2) (12 page)

“I think they’ve already seen it. It’s not that bad.” Delia shoved the phone back in her pocket. “Besides, I’m sure Grant will hunt you down to diffuse the situation, because he knows you aren’t a suffer-in-silence kind of girl. Maybe you could use this to your advantage.”

I didn’t know what she meant, and I didn’t have time to figure it out. We barely made it to our next class on time. People stared; I gritted my teeth, and gave everyone my best I-don’t-give-a-shit-what-you-think smile.

My jaw ached by the time lunch rolled around. I wasn’t sure if I could eat. A large bowl of ice cream might work. People stared and whispered as Delia and I entered the cafeteria. Pride kept my head up and my shoulders back. I would not cower. I might get sick to my stomach and break out in a cold sweat—check and check—but I would not run and hide.

I spotted Lena sitting at a table surrounded by other girls, laughing and talking. My hands curled into fists. “How many detentions would I get for punching someone in the face?”

“As much as I’d love to find out, we’re not going to play that way.” Delia led me over to a table in the center of the room.

“Why are we sitting here?” I didn’t want to be on display like this.

“To show people you don’t care.” Delia set her back pack down. “I’m starving today.”

What was up with the loud voice?

“Your turn.” She laughed, like she’d made a joke. “Act like nothing’s wrong and it will drive Lena crazy.”

As plans went, this one pretty much sucked but it wasn’t like I had any better ideas. So, I smiled and laughed as we walked up to the buffet. Once we were in line, I said, “Hey, look, they have chicken tenders today.”

“Yum.” Delia loaded up her plate.

I could feel everyone staring at me. My face heated, but I kept up the act. “What sounds really good right now, is the lemon meringue pie from Betty’s.”

Delia made a sound that was borderline obscene, causing several guys at the buffet to turn and stare. “What? The lemon meringue pie at Betty’s is awesome.”

And now I was laughing for real. If I made it through this day, I would buy Delia her own pie, for being the best friend ever.

Back at the table, I ate chicken tenders without tasting them, and kept up the fake conversation with Delia.

When there was ten minutes of lunch left, I said, “Notice who’s not eating lunch here today?”

“No Grant, and no Aiden. Makes you wonder what they’re up to.”

“Exactly.” Where were they? Shouldn’t Grant be worried about how I was dealing with all this crap?

“It’s kind of cowardly,” Delia said, “leaving you to deal with this alone.”

“Sad, but true. Maybe I’ll spill something on him in Foods class, or accidentally stab him with a knife.”

And I might have stabbed him, given a chance, but he wasn’t in Foods class. Where the heck was he?

Chapter Twelve

Zoe

Ms. Ida didn’t ask the class where Grant was, so she must have known he wasn’t coming. I made cinnamon streusel muffins by myself while compulsively checking the classroom door, waiting for the object of my affection to come in so I could rip his head off. No such luck.

After class, I hung behind while the room cleared out. “Ms. Ida, do you know where Grant is?”

“He signed out for a family emergency,” Ms. Ida said.

Family emergency my ass. Grinding my teeth, I headed for my next class. That jerk had left me here to deal with this by myself. The next time I saw him he was a dead man.

I was halfway to my class when a boy with teeth too big for his fake smile blocked my path. “Hello, Zoe.”

“Hi.” What did this guy want?

“I’m Phin.” He gave me more of his off-balance smile. The guy should model for toothpaste commercials.

“Nice to meet you.” I tried to dodge by him, but he moved with me. “Phin, I need to go to class.”

“My family has more money than the Evertides.” He ran his hand down my arm in a way that made me want to run and take a shower.

“How nice for you. Now get out of my way.” I pulled my backpack off and held it in front of me so he couldn’t get too close.

And then he winked at me and backed up a few steps. “We’ll talk later.”

“No. We won’t.” Weirded out, I ran to class, barely making it to my seat before the bell rang.

Lena smirked at me from her seat across the room. I fantasized about slamming her face into the desk, repeatedly.

By the end of the day, I felt like a slingshot someone had pulled back but forgotten to release. On the way to meet Jack at the car, Phin popped up again.

“There you are.” He gave me that smile again. Did he really think that was a good look?

I walked past him, figuring I wouldn’t encourage him. A hand grabbed my arm, and I jerked to a stop. Whipping around I yanked my arm from his grasp. “Back off.”

“Whoa.” He held both hands up and laughed.

“Whatever it is you want, I’m not interested. Go away.” There. I couldn’t be any clearer.

His smile tightened, and his eyes turned hard and mean. “That wasn’t very nice.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something about this guy was off. Backing away from him, I said, “Nothing personal. I hate all guys right now.” And then I spun around and headed to the car, where Jack stood watching me.

Once we were on the highway, Jack said, “From Grant, to Phin, you sure know how to pick them.”

“I didn’t pick Phin. I was trying to get away from him.” I wiped my sweat coated palms on my skirt. “Thanks for the help.”

“How am I supposed to know which assholes you want to talk to and which ones you don’t?”

“For the sake of argument, let’s say Grant is the only snob I want to talk to. If you see some other jerk grabbing at me, come help.”

He was silent for a moment. “Sorry. I’ll tell him to leave you alone.”

“Thanks. Speaking of my life going to hell, did you see the video?”

“I did, but I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Huh.
“Is that because you didn’t want to upset me, or because you like what the video means?”

“Both. Want me to stop at Betty’s for a pie on the way home?”

I laughed. “Yes, and now I believe you really do care about me.”

…

The weekend passed with no word from Grant. What had I expected? He didn’t owe me anything. He wasn’t the one who looked like an idiot on YouTube. I’d had to set my account to friends only, which I’d narrowed down to Delia, because guys were sending me pervy messages. Somehow Grant not kissing me made guys think I was open to kissing, or doing other things with them. What kind of stupid logic was that?

Sunday morning, my grandmother came into my room. “I heard about what happened at school Friday.”

Great. I pulled the covers up over my head. “I’m staying under here until someone destroys the Internet.”

She tugged the cover down from my face. “When I was a teenager, if you made a mistake, everyone teased you for a while and then forgot. The internet makes that more difficult.”

“Can you home-school me?” I asked, only half joking.

“No, but I can help you get over this.” She patted my leg. “Come on. Let’s go shoot cans off the back fence.”

It was better than nothing.

…

When Monday morning rolled around, I wanted to lie on the kitchen floor and throw a fit like a toddler. I settled for saying, “I don’t want to go to school.”

My mom downed her coffee and checked the clock. “I’m sorry, sweetie. You have to keep moving forward. One foot in front of the other.” She gave me the same pained smile she’d worn since Dad died.

“Okay, Mom.”

“That’s my girl.” She patted me on the shoulder as she walked by.

My grandmother waited until Mom walked out the front door. “She can’t help it, Zoe.”

“I know.” I swallowed over the lump in my throat. My mom had suffered serious depression after my dad died. Not like the rest of us hadn’t, but when she came out of it there was something missing. Like she never came back all the way, she never really felt anything anymore, or seemed to care about any of us.

Right now I’d give a million dollars not to care about the stupid video.

The only bright spot in my morning was Delia promising to meet me in the parking lot with a cup of coffee so she could give me a pep talk before I faced the masses.

…

“I say we kneecap Lena, Grant, and Phin,” Delia said as we sat in her truck drinking coffee.

“Sure, why not?” I took a deep breath and checked the lot for Grant’s shiny black sports car. No luck. A ton of students milled about, like they were waiting for someone to make fun of. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to hide in your truck all day.”

“Nope. We are wearing our big girl panties today and we’re going to deal with this.”

“How?” I threw my hands up in disgust. “Pretending it doesn’t bother me is not the answer. It bothers me. It bothers me a lot. I’m not sure who I’m madder at, Lena for posting the video, or Grant for rejecting me and then leaving me to deal with the fallout by myself.”

“Yeah, that was a dick move.” She opened the truck door. “Let’s go find him and cause a scene.”

Oh, God. “How will that help?”

Delia strutted through the parking lot like she was the reigning queen. “It may not help, but it’ll be fun.”

“Can’t we sit quietly on a bench somewhere?”

“No. As your best friend, it’s my job to help you show everyone you don’t give a crap what they think.” We headed for the spot where Grant and Aiden normally hung out. Aiden was there, but no Grant.

Delia marched up to him. “Where is he?”

Aiden adjusted his glasses and tilted his head. “He who?”

“You’re too smart to play dumb,” Delia said. “Where is Grant?”

“He’s trying to solve a problem.”

“And what problem would that be?” It better be my problem, or I was going to do something really ugly to the next person who messed with me.

Aiden hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder. “He’s talking to Phin.”

That was good. “Wait a minute. How did he know Phin was bothering me?”

“Phin has a big mouth.” Aiden gave a tight smile.

“I’m sure I’ll regret asking this, but what does that mean?”

Looking down at his shoes, Aiden cleared his throat. “Phin bragged that he’d make you the Ringer before Grant could.”

“He’s dead.” Fists clenched, I whirled around looking for the idiot. His too large teeth in his obnoxious fake grin were nowhere in sight.

“Zoe.” Grant’s voice came from behind me.

I whipped around. “Where the hell have you been? Do you know the kind of crap I’ve been dealing with? Everyone is watching that stupid video, and Phin is stalking me.”

“He won’t bother you anymore.”

“How do you know that?” My face was hot, and my eyes burned with angry tears.

“He works with my father, so I know certain things about his family he doesn’t want everyone at Wilton to know. Believe me when I say, he won’t come near you again.”

I wanted to believe him. And I was grateful, but Phin was just the tip of the iceberg of the colossal mess my life had become. “And the video? Have you seen it?”

“Yes. People keep sending me links.”

“Because of you, I’m going to have to transfer back to public school.”

“This isn’t all my fault,” Grant said. “If you hadn’t run off Friday morning, with your weird rule of three thing—”

I held up three fingers. “The video was number three.”

“Whatever. If you’d talked to me instead of acting like a drama queen, I could’ve told you I saw Lena pointing her phone at us, which distracted me, so I didn’t realize you were trying to kiss me until after you had run off.”

Oh. My. God.
“Why didn’t you come find me and tell me that? Where did you go?”

“I wasn’t here because my grandfather was rushed to the hospital.”

And my anger deflated like a helium balloon the day after a party. “Is he all right?”

“He is now. It was something with his heart. They’re running some tests.”

“I’m sorry about your grandpa.” And I was, but I was in the middle of my own crisis. “Back to Friday, are you saying you would’ve kissed me if you’d been paying attention?” I was setting myself up, and I knew it. I might as well give him a bat to smack me in the head with.

“I stopped to talk to you, didn’t I?” Grant shoved his hand back through his hair. “I could have walked past your car.”

Over Grant’s shoulder, I saw girls pointing and snickering. “That makes me feel better, but everyone thinks you blew me off. Guys I don’t know are sending me pervy messages. How are we going to fix this?”

“Better yet, how are we going to get revenge?” Delia asked.

“Catch Lena doing something stupid and put it on You Tube?” Aiden suggested.

Delia reached over and patted his arm. “You’ve redeemed yourself.”

“I don’t understand you.” Aiden stared at her like she was a problem he couldn’t solve.

“Ask me on a date and I’ll give you a few clues,” Delia said.

“We could go on a double date,” Grant suggested. “That would show people I wasn’t blowing you off.”

Part of me wanted to jump up and down and celebrate, but the other part of me needed this humiliation taken care of right now. “Sure. I guess. But that doesn’t change how everyone is looking at me
now
.”

Grant tilted his head and studied me. “You
guess
you want to go on a date with me? You mean you’re not sure?”

Was he trying to start a fight? “You know what I mean. A date would be nice, but it won’t fix the big problem I’m having right this minute.”

“A date would be nice.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Nice. That’s what all guys strive for.”

“Oh my God. Could you pull your head out of your ass for a minute and focus on the real issue here.” And there was dead silence all around us. I cringed. “I said that a little loud, didn’t I?”

Delia was biting her lip like she was trying not to laugh.

Aiden looked back and forth between Grant and me like he was waiting for something to explode.

Grant’s eyes narrowed and he moved closer, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You want me to fix this right now?” His tone wasn’t mad, but it had an edge that made me nervous.

Afraid of what might come out of my mouth if I opened it, I nodded.

“Fine.” He wrapped his other arm around my waist, pulled my body flush against his, and kissed me. It was a no-holds-barred-kiss like you see in the movies. Catcalls sounded in the background. There might have been some clapping. Not that I cared.

“Mr. Evertide,” a voice thundered.

Grant stepped away from me and turned to face a teacher I didn’t know. “Yes?”

“Detention for both of you.”

Grant pointed at me. “She started it.”

My jaw dropped, and then I laughed.

The teacher did not appear amused. “Report to the principal’s office after school.”

“Will do.” Grant put his arm around my shoulders. “Happy?”

“Yes.” And I was.

“All done,” Delia said.

“What’s all done?” I asked.

Delia passed me her phone. On her You Tube page there was a video of Grant kissing me, with the caption:
Suck on that, Lena.